This invention relates to golf equipment and, in particular, to golf bags with stands.
Golf bags with stands are well known in the art. One popular golf bag with a stand is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,235 to Solheim et al. The golf bag disclosed in the Solheim patent comprises a lightweight fabric body with rigid members at the top and bottom ends. The rigid members are connected by a rigid spine that extends longitudinally of the body. Because the spine supports only one side of the body, the diametrically opposed side of the body remains at least partially collapsible. It is this characteristic that is employed to operate the golf bag stand which is mounted on the partially collapsible side of the body and includes a pair of legs. The upper ends of the legs are pivotally attached to the rigid member at the top end of the body. An actuator rod of generally U-shaped configuration is attached to the rigid member at the bottom end of the body so that the free ends of the actuator rod may be attached to the legs at points between the upper and lower ends of the legs.
Whenever the golf bag is in its normal position, i.e., in the form of a right circular cylinder, such as when being carried, the distance between the top and bottom ends of the body will be at a maximum. This causes the legs to be retracted and held firmly against the side of the body so that the legs do not interfere with any normal activities of the golfer carrying the golf bag.
When the golfer sets the golf bag down, the simple and natural movement of resting the golf bag on its bottom end and leaning it over slightly automatically moves the legs of the stand into an extended position as the partially collapsible side of the body collapses. The pivot axes of the legs are approximately tangent to the throat of the golf bag. Accordingly, as the legs deploy they splay outward to provide a more stable tripod than could be accomplished if the pivot axes were parallel. Increasing the separation of the pivots and therefore the splay angle of the legs would increase the stability, however, would reduce the mechanical advantage of the actuator. The longer legs required by an increased splay angle would also potentially extend beyond the bottom of the bag and interfere with the automatic deployment mechanism. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a golf bag with an automatically extensible bag stand having a wider track in its deployed condition without increasing the pivot splay angle or substantially increasing the length of the retracted legs.